A genealogist is one who chases his own tale.
Old genealogists never die. They just lose their census.
The gentleman will please remember that when his half-civilised ancestors were hunting the wild boar in Silesia, mine were princes of the earth.
Judah Philip Benjamin (1811-1884), said in reply to an anti-Semitic remark made by a senator of German origin:
Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon. --Disraeli (reply to a taunt by Daniel O'Connell
We cannot reform our forefathers. --George Eliot, Adam Bede, 1859
Ah, yes, but they will make fine ancestors.
Francis Forro (1914-1974) replied to a journalist's comment, that the Hungarian refugees arriving at Mascot aerodrome (Australia) looked scruffy:
Oh well, it's right that the members of these old families should stick together nowadays. After all, their ancestors in those days were probably chained together. -- Billy Hughes (1864-1952) speaking about a rival candidate standing for election in North Sydney, 1931
A nation is a society united by a delusion about it's ancestry and by a common hatred of it's neighbours.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) , In Saggitarius and George, 'The Perpetual Pessimist'
Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.
Lewis Mumford, The Brown Decades , 1931
The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry, is like the potato--the best part under ground. - Sir Thomas Overbury (1581 &endash; 1613)
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